In the year 1893, during the World's Fair held in Chicago, Illinois, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, received invitations from some of her followers in that city to share the hospitality of their homes. She answered these plans for her pleasure with a card in The Christian Science Journal which included the following sentences: "I have a world of wisdom and Love to contemplate, that concerns me, and you, infinitely beyond all earthly expositions or exhibitions. In return for your kindness, I earnestly invite you to its contemplation with me, and to preparation to behold it." Later this card was included among the memorabilia recorded in her book "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 321, 322) and thereby extended her invitation to all readers of her message.
The language of this unusual invitation implies the nearness rather than the remoteness of this world of Love. There is also evident within this invitation a certain urgency to impress upon the reader the fact that the world to which our Leader refers is of immediate concern to men, together with the need of their preparation to discern it. The impression is given that what our Leader was contemplating and recommending to her followers' attention was not a dream world, but the world of existing reality, the world God made, the infinite universe of Mind. This was what St. John saw while on Patmos; this was what Christ Jesus described as the kingdom of heaven.
The Master was prepared to behold this sublime view because of his more than human origin. St. John and, later, the Discoverer of divine Science, Mrs. Eddy, were ready for the vision because of their inspired, spiritual comprehension of God and His creation. In Revelation and in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," their authors have described in inimitable language the perfection and majesty of God's handiwork, further unfolding the matchless statements of the first Christian. As the reader of these works finds his thoughts purged of human misconceptions and touched with the pure meaning of divine Love, he is lifted to the vantage point where the universe of Love's creating is spread before him. Then spiritual contemplation of reality unfolding into realization finally becomes concrete experience.
The landscape seen from the observation post of inspired thought is wholly spiritual, radiant with the beauty of holiness and filled with perfect, living identities through which divine Science unfolds the majesty and splendor of being. The height, breadth, and depth of all things are fashioned to show the measure of Love's nature. A basic fact of the real cosmos is the spirituality of all laws, energies, and the evolution whereby the immortality of existence is sustained and God's name hallowed. The order of the universe displays the harmony of Soul, and Love's rejoicing in its work is the rhythm of creation. All things are filled with living exquisiteness and enfolded in grandeur. Love's nearness is felt in perfect peace; its power is expressed in music of the spheres.
The beholder of this view is impressed with the established plan of creation, its flawless order and endless manifestation of gentle might and immortal wisdom. There are signs of Love's control everywhere. All expressions of Life emanate from the individuality of Love, are inseparable from it and permeated by it. All the elements of creation are preserved in the unfoldment of perfect being. Hence existence is the enjoyment of fundamental transcendent reality.
As the mental gaze is held steadfastly to the universe of Love's producing, it becomes evident that the outcome of Love's self-containment must be the world of endless Life. There is not to be found within it any sign of birth, decline, decay, or death. There are no periods defined as times before or after birth or death, no conditions based upon such periods, no laws that belong to them, and no creature that is passing through them. Beginning and ending are unknown in the spiritual world; no history of them exists. Life is not producing them, but is expressing the immortality of all things. Within Life's infinitude there lies no world beyond or unknown. There is no parting and no sorrow here. Every expression of creation is filled with joy of eternal living.
The mental picture of the creator's handiwork thrills the onlooker with its procedure. All the laws of divine government are administered to bless the object of Love's care. What divine Love is doing is the news of its world, the only event transpiring. The ceaseless flowing of divine affection is the life stream of creation. Love supplies every identity with the breath of immortality, the strength of eternality, and the nature of divinity. The law of the land is exhaustless provision working through divine volition: the law of spiritual integrity of purpose through which God is keeping His promise that He will never leave nor forsake His own.
The inhabitants of Love's world are not classified as nations or races divided against each other, but rather as one harmonious family having one nature, language, and country, one God, and with the collective purpose of reflecting the infinitude of Love. The coexistence of the inhabitants of this world is the eternal Sabbath day of the creator in which Life is rejoicing, Love is resting, and Mind is reigning. The glory of this day is the permeating warmth of Love's divine devotion to its beloved.
Gradually it becomes apparent to the contemplator of the spiritual realm that matter is unknown in it. Nothing here is encased in matter, is passing into it, or coming out of it. No such thing as a law of matter has ever been heard of in the world of Love or has ever been a part of the calculations of the infinite. Matter's myths of limitation, immaturity, blight, incompleteness, helplessness, have never entered the realm of the real. Only changeless perfection of being is existing; only the seed of concord is flowering; only the harvest of God's planting is being reaped; only the business of heaven is going on.
In the nearness and vastness of Love's universe omniaction is expressed as unfoldment. There is no hurried going or coming: only the stillness of being, springing from exhaustless source. There is no labor of production, for all is complete. No loss and no accretion are occurring; conflict and competition are nonexistent. The development of all identities is never confined or thwarted, because this development never involves a negative condition nor occurs within a measurement of time.
Jesus lived in the world of Love while walking the roads of Galilee. He experienced its peace, knew its supremacy, and was clothed with its glory. Nothing could blot out of his consciousness the sense of oneness, or unity, with divine presence. He demonstrated for himself and for others the reality of Love's world wherever he went. He knew only winds that obeyed divine control; desert stretches where spiritually demonstrated sustenance awaited; crowds in which there was no contagion. At his command the stone moved to make way for his resurrection. He prayed that his followers might be with him where he was, living in the world of Love's creating, beholding its phenomena and obeying its laws.
It is therefore presently possible for the Master's adherents to become conscious of the heavenly kingdom at hand and to recognize the citizen of the realm as the man who is the emanation of Spirit's self-containment, the son of God. Man's past is discernible as wholly good in origin, parentage, and history, filled with all that is favorable to his unfoldment and associated with all that is to his advantage. His future is provided for with promise and fulfillment. It is not unknown to him but is manifested through him. He does not live in anticipation of good but continually experiences it. Man is eternally aware of his immortality and equipped to manifest it. As for his present, we find Mrs. Eddy's following pertinent sentence in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 188): "Man is as perfect now, and henceforth, and forever, as when the stars first sang together, and creation joined in the grand chorus of harmonious being." So man's past, present, and future mingle with the forever continuity of perfect being.
As man is clearly envisioned in the realm of God he can be defined best as the "beloved." St. John gained this impression as he contemplated the offspring of the creator. His writings show that God does not love man by degrees, or only at certain times, but because Love is infinite, it must always express devotion to its own. Love radiates its affection, grace, power, and holiness through man. Only that which Love is doing for man ever comes into his experience. He is crowned with spiritual dominion, and wherever he goes his "feet [are] shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:15). In the beloved is seen the blending of God's plan and achievement.
It is comforting for men today to avail themselves of Mrs. Eddy's invitation to contemplate the world of Love where no elemental violence surges and where there is no hindrance to endless development of existence. The height of Love's world holds no destructive atmosphere, its depth contains no lethal chamber, its breadth leads to no foreign shore. Here is freedom to live safely, to exist sinlessly, to continue eternally. There is no void or darkness at the center or circumference of creation. Mrs. Eddy says of the love that God bestows upon man (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 77), "It guides him by Truth that knows no error, and with supersensual, impartial, and unquenchable Love."
Views of reality such as the foregoing, obtained and retained by men, permeate human experience and subordinate the problems of mortality to the facts of Spirit. Shadows of false belief lessen as the light of spiritual understanding moves toward its noontide of acceptance in the hearts of men. As the objects of sense grow dimmer, the ideas of divine Mind become more clearly defined, until the vivid presence of the universe of Love's creating fills the mental horizon.
